WATCH: Neighbor Helps Man Narrowly Escape Burning Apartment

3 years ago

(Lauren Evans) Are you feeling underwhelmed by your Tuesday? Was your bus late and did your coffee slosh out from under the lid and all over your hand? Yeah. Well. At least you weren't this guy, climbing from the window of a burning Washington Heights apartment onto the world's most precariously placed ladder.

The video begins with a man straddled on a fifth-floor ledge—a worker doing construction in an empty 172nd Street apartment. Smoke pours from the window. Neighbors on the fire escape adjacent are waving a ladder in the man's direction, but the ladder is not at all secure and looks quite plainly like a terrible option. The man on the ledge is between a rock and a hard place, or rather, a fire and a janky-ass ladder place. The neighbors are visibly distressed at their shortcomings as ladder-wielders. They retract the ladder. The smoke billows harder. There is lots of shouting.

Around the 1:33 minute mark, the camera pans to the ground, where a firefighter is standing. What the hell is he doing down there? GET THAT GUY OUT OF THE WINDOW.